Because "30 Rock" premiered at mid-season but had a full season order, from time to time we'll get nights like last night with back-to-back episodes, and I have a review of both coming up just as soon as I care about locally-sourced pig sweepings...

I got home late last night, and on my Twitter reply feed saw that someone had written to me, "Tonight's 30 Rock was the best episode they have done in years. Consistently laugh out loud funny throughout." I then wondered which one he was referring to, and was laughing so much at "Idiots Are People Three!" so much that I figured it had to be that... until I found myself enjoying "The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell" even more. Two terrific episodes where the jokes not only kept coming, but kept hitting, almost every time.

I've always found "30 Rock" a tough show to analyze because in general, it's either funny or it's not. It's the same show every week, more or less, and it's mainly about the quality of the jokes and the execution of them. (For instance, the Phillie Phanatic being an undersea king trying to prevent his daughter's marriage to the Squid Lord is something of a familiar joke — "The Simpsons" did something similar with the Ikea mascot — but it had several layers at once (including Pennsylvania native Liz's deliriously happy reaction to seeing the Phanatic up close) and was just one small part of the larger joke about Jack's hubris bringing him down to the level of people like Lutz.

But there were a couple of notable differences between these two and some of the episodes that I haven't enjoyed as much (like the season premiere), mainly having to do with how they each used Jenna and Kenneth, the show's two most problematic, one-note regular characters. In "Idiots Are People Three!," they were again pushed out of their normal personae to be part of the Best Friends Gang(*), and they were also subordinate to Kelsey Grammer, who's been terrific each time he's on the show. "The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell," meanwhile, mainly used Kenneth to set up what his absence meant to Jack, and put Jenna in a storyline that finally gave a reasonable answer to why she and Liz are still friends. (And it helped that Mick Foley was as game as he always is to mock himself as one of Jenna's self-involved new "celebrity" friends.)

(*) The fake freeze-frame at the end of that storyline, pictured above, is also a gag that's been done before — every episode of "Police Squad!" ended that way — but it's never not funny if you came of age in the days when so many shows ended in real freeze-frames that were meant to be taken seriously.

"30 Rock" ain't deep, but when it's as on its game as it was in both of these installments, I don't need deep, because the funny is so abundant.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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1) as a native philadelphian, i IMMEDIATELY identified with liz lemon's reaction to seeing the phanatic up close. i had a similar reaction the first time i met the green guy.2) the phanatic is not an undersea lord. he is from the galapagos. everyone knows that.

After he made that comment I remembered that Maulik Pancholy probably wouldn't be on the show much anymore, and then I noticed that Jonathan's desk was visible through the open door but whoever was sitting at the desk was very out of focus and unrecognizable.

I really liked both episodes, but the second episode was the one that was supposed to air next week."The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell" is about Kenneth switching page assignments and Liz and Jack negotiating her contract.

No mention of Will Arnett's performance? I thought this was one of his better performances in a while, and it was a joy to see him being funny again unlike in Up All Night. These were both great episodes, and, I never thought I'd say this, but 30 Rock was better than Parks and Rec last night.

I actually quite prefer a show like 30 Rock, which aims everything it has for the laughs, than a show like Parks and Recreation, which aims for the laughs but also wastes a lot of time trying to be cute. If a show actually succeeds in being funny (which 30 Rock does), I don't need anything else to like the characters. That's something that Seinfeld really understood.

I only saw idiots are people three, and thought liz's harangue against idiots was obvious, bitter and unfunny. I mean, God knows I'm a snob, but whenever they go into the red state/blue state dichotomy, I feel I'm being lectured by an old maid aunt....

I thought they were both great episodes with some excellent lines. As the dad of a toddler in NYC, the whole nursery school bit hit home and was really well done. However, I disagree about Kelsey Grammer - that whole plot line did absolutely nothing for me and just seemed to drag on.

I don't know about all of you, but whenever I see Kenneth's awful grin pop up on the screen, I brace myself. I think he's as problematic as Jenna. They need to do something with him fast, because I was in agreement when Jack Donaghy fired him (again). Doesn't do anything for me.

Hm, didn't love Idiots are People Three (though there were several good jokes), but I really liked The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell. Absolutely loved the Martin Luther King Day trailer. I had had a similar idea about strange holidays they could do another of those movies for, only I was thinking of Yom Kippur or Passover.

They were pretty good, especially everything involving Arnett (I'm one of those very few who find his character on this funnier than his Arrested work), but this show really needs Elizabeth Banks back badly. It was a character that really worked and made the show seem fresh again.

I'm confused. How many eps. is 30 Rock doing this season? Is it a full 22? When did they find the time to do this with Tina Fey's maternity leave? I know Parks & Rec went right into production on season 3 after season 2 in order to accomodate Amy Poehler, but I haven't heard anything about 30 Rock doing that. And even with that we didn't get a full 22 of P&R last year.

One of my favorite parts of 'The Ballad' was actually in the credits, where the fake Sex and the City characters had names like 'Charglotte' and 'Mirandor'. My roommate and I were in hysterics over that.

I don't like Jack's reaction to Kriss. Early in the show it makes sense, but as the show has repeated over and over again, Liz is 41 years old. Realistically her biological clock is ticking down to zero and he dreams of finding a man and eventually having kids is dwindling fast. While, understandably, Kriss has a lot of flaws that Jack disagrees with, I find it hard to believe that the perfect guy for Liz has to fit all the "Jack" criteria as opposing to just being comparable with her. It seems logical that Jack would first and foremost care how Liz is with Kriss and how he treats her (i.e. the opposite of Dennis) as opposed to being the hoity-toity person of Jack's dreams. Jack eventually realized the follies of his ways when he saw Liz and Kriss talking over hot dogs but I not only didn't like it when Jack immediately disapproved but it felt contrived that Jack immediately disapproved at this point in Liz Lemon's life

As always Alan keep up the great work. I love reading your reviews and would love for you to spend as much time on 30 Rock and The Office as you do on Parks and Rec

I really liked both episodes. The Martin Luther King day trailer was great. I love AU Kelsey Grammer. I think it is obvious that some guest stars just really enjoy doing the show.

In his WTF with Marc Maron interview Dan Harmon said that he about 30% less funny than Tina Fey and therefore Community will always be 30% less funny than 30 Rock. However, he thinks he makes up for that with heart (i.e. depth) however he acknowledged that Tina Fey's rebuttal would be that she doesn't need to rely on heart because they are just that funny.

So, that was long and I am paraphrasing. But I think he is right. As far as jokes per minute go, 30 Rock is one of the funniest sitcoms of all time (and I do believe all time). If you want a little something extra like heart or depth, well there is some of that (Jack and Liz's relationship is touching in its own way) but you really should go elsewhere.

Remember in season one where Jack predicted Kenneth would one day run NBC or kill all of them (or something like that)? It would help if they moved Kenneth into a Forest Gump style rival for Jack... suddenly a threat, shake things up etc.